A horde of hard-hat-clad fifth graders crowded the front steps of the Tumalo Community School on the morning of June 11, surrounding Principal Sam Platt, Redmond School District Superintendent Charan Cline and an array of school board members. The district leaders were gathered for the groundbreaking of the school’s expansion. The project, fully funded by a $13.5 million allocation from the 2025 Capital Bond, aims to both expand and renovate the existing school building.
Tumalo Community School, founded in 1906, is one of the oldest schools in Central Oregon. Over the past century, it has gone through several renovation projects and transformations. In 2020, the school downsized its grade range from K-8 to K-5. Now, the school’s focus is shifting again.
The upcoming project will result in the construction of four additional classrooms and an expansion to the existing cafeteria. These changes are preparing the current K-5 school to once again accommodate grades 6-8.
“I’m so excited to see how this program grows and evolves over the next three years,” says Platt. Platt believes that the new construction will launch the school in a good direction and is excited for the opportunities the renovated space will offer.
Cline corroborated Platt’s optimism.
“By adding this middle school component to this building, we’re really going to serve this community better.”
The new middle school will take an alternative approach to conventional education practices. “It’s [the school] going to create a very focused and kind of boutique program here,” says Cline. “It’ll be a little more focused [and] we’re going to go with a bit more of an outdoor, agriculture, science kind of focus to the school.”
The school’s proximity to the Deschutes River lends itself to the school’s new academic direction. “We have an agreement worked out with Deschutes County to have access to a little public park down here on the Deschutes,” says Cline. “We’ll be able to take kids down there, do water sampling, do different kinds of aquatic bug collection, that kind of stuff.”
Beyond academics, the school will begin offering alternatives to traditional extracurriculars that draw from the Central Oregon environment.
“We look forward to creating opportunities for kids to engage in outdoor recreation, whether that is skiing, snowshoeing or mountain biking,” Platt told the Source. “I’m really trying to focus on the activities that our community already engages in, and that will be unique to middle schools throughout the region.”
With the strike of a shovel, the project has officially entered the construction phase. Work will be done throughout the summer, with a projected end date of September 2027, when doors will open to welcome in the first class of middle schoolers.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
